Michel de Montaigne Philosopher
Gender: Male
Citizenship: France
Born: Feb 28, 1533
Died: Sep 13, 1592
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was one of the most influential philosophers of the French Renaissance, known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual exercises with casual anecdotes and autobiography—and his massive volume Essais contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers all over the world, including René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Albert Hirschman, William Hazlitt, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig, Eric Hoffer, Isaac Asimov, and possibly on the later works of William Shakespeare.
In his own lifetime, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman than as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, 'I am myself the matter of my book', was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent.
There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.
knowledge
Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.
death
I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
work
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
courage
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
age
If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
love
The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
death
My trade and art is to live.
art
Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.
courage
A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.
good & marriage
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
business & nature
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
failure
I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.
truth
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
knowledge & wisdom
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
fear
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
intelligence
No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.
communication
If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.
friendship , good , love & marriage
Marriage is like a cage one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
marriage
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
marriage
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
education
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
family
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
best
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
death
The thing I fear most is fear.
fear
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
family & government
How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.
faith
The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
God
For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
sports
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
dreams
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
future
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
wisdom
Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.
353 more quotes about best
Christians should be ready for a change because Jesus was the greatest changer in history.
171 quotes about change
Always remember that the future comes one day at a time.
171 quotes about change
If you break 100, watch your golf. If you break 80, watch your business.
198 other wisdom & wit relating to business
We cannot make events. Our business is wisely to improve them.
198 other thoughts about business
Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
41 more sayings relating to communication
There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behaves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.
353 quotes regarding best
Christmas is over and Business is Business.
198 wisdom & wit about business
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
158 quotes relating to courage
There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.
212 more quotes regarding beauty
The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass.
353 thoughts about best
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
198 other quotes about business
Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free.
158 quotes about courage
A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.
198 quotes regarding business
The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.
171 wisdom & wit regarding change
An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission.
198 wisdom & wit regarding business
Work hard, stay positive, and get up early. It's the best part of the day.
353 thoughts relating to best
Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd it must be communicated by contagion.
41 quotes regarding communication
Things are beautiful if you love them.
212 other quotes about beauty
On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles.
24 thoughts about birthday
Let them eat cake.
24 more quotes regarding birthday
Dear, never forget one little point. It's my business. You just work here.
198 other quotes regarding business
This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst expect the best and take what comes.
353 wisdom & wit about best
Poetry a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.
212 quotes regarding beauty
It takes more than capital to swing business. You've got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by - Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics.
198 more thoughts regarding business
The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything... or nothing.
171 other thoughts regarding change
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
353 thoughts about best
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
353 wisdom & wit regarding best
One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.
353 quotes relating to best
The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.
212 more quotes about beauty
A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.
38 thoughts about dad
You must change in order to survive.
171 other quotes about change